Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer created a media firestorm in January after a heated conversation between her and President Obama was photographed. The governor exchanged words with the president on an airport tarmac in Phoenix, famously wagging her finger at him.
In the days following, the governor’s office was flooded with more than 12,000 letters and emails from across the country, most of them condemning Brewer. The Arizona Republic obtained 100 randomly selected letters, many of them calling the governor “trashy” and “tasteless.”
“If you approached me like you did the president I would have taken great comfort by poking you in the nose,” one California woman wrote. An Ohioan promised that “the stamp I use to mail this message will be the last cent I ever spend on anything related to the state of Arizona.”
Not all the letters were negative. An Iowa woman applauded Brewer for “standing up to that narcissist, egotistical, smug, puffed up President!!” Another said it was “too bad you couldn’t have slapped him instead.”
Brewer’s staff said that, though numerous, the letters over “Fingergate” couldn’t compare to the repose she got over signing the state’s controversial immigration law, Senate Bill 1070. In the five days following the law, Brewer’s office received 160,000 phone calls and 40,000 faxes. Yeas & Nays is less impressed with the numbers and more baffled by the fact that people still write letters and send faxes.
